Commonly Misspelled Words in English Language

English is a strange language – some words are spelled as they are sound, some derive their spellings from an origin and some are, simply, exceptions to every rule! Commonly misspelled words are often referred to as interchanging or leaving letters out of a certain word, in writing. As it is known, misspellings are commonly associated with area and region. The best example is the British and American way of writing English where both are different, yet allowed, as per the dictionary. Although it is impossible to count the number of words given in the Oxford English Dictionary, there are believed to be 171,476 words in current use and 47,156 obsolete words. In addition, there are 9,500 derivative terms, making it a grand total of at least a quarter of a million words. It must be kept in mind that variations in spelling may differ in a particular field of study and sometimes, may be purposely misspelled as in song lyrics, abbreviations, slang etc. So, it is physically impossible to keep track of all Latin words, medical terminology, inflections along with German words in academic writing and Japanese words in martial arts and so on! There are bound to be some alterations in the spelling of any of the above. To avoid common errors, look through the section below.

Most Misspelled Words

Causes of Misspelling

• Mispronounced Words – One of the most common causes for misspelling is the misuse of phonetic sounds. For instance, jewellery (British) is commonly pronounced as ‘joolry’. The same way, realize can be twisted to sound like ‘relize’. Environment pronounced as ‘envirement’ is another common mistake. Words derived from other languages such as French, as in the case of rendezvous, can also cause confusion.
• Homophones – Differently spelled words with same pronunciation but different meanings are called homophones. Take as an example, ‘read’. This word can be used as all tenses of the verb, ‘to read’. Its homophones are reed (a plant) and red (the colour). Other errors can come in the following words: loose (lose), right (rite), weather (whether), principal (principle), rime (rhyme) etc.
• Proper Nouns – Most proper nouns are spelled differently from the actual word itself. John Ballance (balance), Evelyn Waugh (war) and George Marshall (marshal) etc. Here, it is important to note that no particular spelling is right or wrong as names can vary indefinitely. English language allows multiple pronunciations for proper nouns.
• Concatenation – Up to (upto), in fact (infact), all right (alright), in case (incase), a while (awhile), a lot (alot) and all be it (albeit) are all examples of words that can be misspelled. Concatenation is a computer program that joins two characters end-to-end. Some of the above mentioned words have been included in the dictionary, while the others haven’t as yet.
• Apostrophes – Words using apostrophes can drastically change the meaning of the text itself. Take for example: ‘its’ and ‘it’s’. Both these words signify two completely different meaning; while the latter is an abbreviated version of ‘it is’, the former indicates possession and ownership. Mistakes are also made in the singular and plural possessive forms such as books titles and book’s titles. Doesn’t (or does not) can be misspelled and written as does’nt.
• British vs. American – The biggest debate of the English language lies in the British vs. American spellings. Although, most English-speaking countries follow British English, even the American way of spelling is accepted in some parts. It can be seen that the Americans almost always spell according to the phonetic sound that the word produces. There are numerous examples of these, starting from American color and British colour to others like program (programme), center (centre), practice (practise), analyze (analyse), fetus (foetus) and so on.

Other Common Examples

Incorrect Spelling	Correct Spelling
Priviledge	Privilege
Usualy	Usually
Existance	Existence
Carribean	Caribbean
Alchohol	Alcohol
Potatos	Potatoes
Refered	Referred
They’re	Their
Untill	Until
Vehical	Vehicle
Independant	Independent
Wellfare	Welfare
Absense	Absence
You’re	Your
Recieve	Receive
Guarentee	Guarantee
Rasberry	Amateur
Embarrasment	Embarrassment
Firy	Fiery
Lisence	License
Vaccum	Vacuum
Wierd	Weird
Vegatarian	Vegetarian
Underate	Underrate
Twelth	Twelfth
Commitee	Committee
Que	Queue
Scisors	Scissors
Labouratory	Laboratory
Guidence	Guidance
Ocassion	Occasion
Heros	Heroes
Vigilent	Vigilant
Dumbell	Dumbbell
Goverment	Government
Truely	Truly
Artic	Arctic
Concensus	Consensus
Harrass	Harass
Procede	Proceed
Mischevious	Mischievous
Discribe	Judgment
Occurence	Occurrence
Exausted	Exhausted
Accomodate	Accommodate
Drunkeness	Drunkenness
Brocolli	Broccoli
Grammer	Grammar
Innoculate	Inoculate
Manuver	Maneuver
Possesion	Possession
Noticable	Noticeable
Maintainence	Maintenance
Cooly	Coolly
Aquire	Acquire
Equiped	Equipped

Believe it or not, commonly mispelled… oops, misspelled words have become increasingly infamous owing to the use of ‘autocorrect’ and ‘auto spell-checks’ on smart-phones and computer software. It is important to understand that the use of English, an already difficult language, would become even more confusing for generations to come. Hope the errors mentioned in the article above has been helpful to you!